


Not Just A Kid

by orphan_account



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Childhood Friends, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Kid Fic, M/M, Minor Character Death, Teen Romance, Unrequited Crush, Young Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-20
Updated: 2013-10-20
Packaged: 2017-12-29 23:59:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1011609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam and Leo have been best friends since the Kirk's moved to Georgia, their age difference means sometimes Jim gets pushed to the sidelines. But he's been crushing on Bones since he was six and nothing he does can stop it. This is a journey of things going from Sam and Leo to Jim and Bones.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not Just A Kid

It was always Sam and Leo, Winona knew it, Eleanor knew it. Jesus, half the neighbourhood knew it. When the Kirk’s had moved to Savannah after Winona divorced Frank in the summer of thirty-nine, Leo was twelve, Sam was ten and Jim had just turned six. The two older boys had struck up an instant friendship. Leo needed someone to help him and David build the tree-house and Sam had always had a hankering for craft. By the time it was built the summer was at its peak and they were taking cycling trips down to the creek, reading comics in the tree house, as well as trying to develop an adjoining tire swing. They might have only known each other for a few months but by the time school started up again it was clear to both mothers that they’d adopted the neighbouring son into their family and there was no way of keeping them apart.

That left Jim slightly out of the loop. He was just a  _kid_.  Only just starting second grade. He didn’t know about the kind of stuff Leo and Sam knew about. He was kind of annoying and he always got them in trouble if they let him join in their games.

By the time Leo was sixteen and Sam was fourteen there was a bond formed that no parent, big-breasted senior or principle could break. They were best friends. They stole their first bottle of bourbon together and drank it on the Kirk’s roof; they saw Rita Young topless in the baseball changing rooms together, bought their first pack on condoms together. And even when Leo had to start applying for college he and Sam made month by month plans of how they would handle that inevitable disruption.

They were kind of co-dependant.

“It’s like they’re dating.” Jim scoffs to his mother. He’s ten. But he still says, with no shame: “Bones could do better.”

Winona turns to look at her son, the blonder of the two, he’s reading a math book designed for kids two grades ahead of him, in fact, it might be Sam’s old geometry book. Jim’s adored Leo as long as they’ve lived here. It’s like hero worship because Leo is the guy-next-door, Sam’s best friend, and Jim can’t stand it when Sam has something Jim can’t have. But maybe it’s growing into something a little less platonic; maybe Leo’ll be Jim’s first crush.

“Oh yeah?” She says, raising an eyebrow to ask for an elaboration.

“Well.” Jim shrugs. “Bones needs a guy he can rely on, is all. Sam’s flaky.”

“And Leo could rely on you, huh?” Winona wonders.

“I guess.” Jim nods. “I wouldn’t spend time kissing girls in the tree house, Sam does that.”

“Well Sam’s a fair bit older than you, Jim.” Winona says gently. “I don’t think he and Leo want to date each other anyway.”

“No?” Jim questions, eyes brightening.

“Nu-uh.” Winona says, setting down some apple juice and placing a gentle hand on his shoulder. “But Leo’s a sophomore now, Jim. He’s probably going to find someone he wants to date.”

“I can wait.” Jim says with a determined nod, turning back to his books.

Jim tries to spend more time with the two teens, he intrudes on their tree-house rendezvous and prevents them from talking about anything that isn’t strictly PG. Sam spends a lot of time looking pissed off while Leo tries to be diplomatic, keep the brothers from coming to blows.

“Jim could you like, go and knock for Janice or something?” Sam huffs, trying not to be horrible to his irritating kid brother.

“I don’t want to knock for Jan.” He pouts. “I wanna hang out with you guys.”

“Yeah but we’re older than you and we don’t want you here.” Sam huffs.

“Bones wants me here, right Bones?” Jim says, looking from Sam to Leo with big blue eyes.

“Well.” Leo starts slowly. “It’s just that I have to tell Sam something really,  _really_  important  and you are four years too young to hear it.”

“But I’m not stupid.” Jim frowns.

“I know, Jimmy.” Leo says with an earnest smile. “But sometimes there are things ten year olds shouldn’t hear.”

“Is it that you kissed, Jocelyn?” Jim questions, looking like he might cry.

“Jim, just go away,  _Jesus_.” Sam huffs, literally picking Jim up and placing him outside of his bedroom. Locking the door. But Jim doesn’t move from the door and that’s pretty much how he learns about the birds and the bees - and where his hatred for all Darnell females stems from.

Then Leo has turned eighteen and Sam has turned sixteen and Jim’s crush has become unbearable.

“I think she’s strange looking.” Jim says of Jocelyn to Janice one day after school when they’re sitting on the grass in the front yard.

“I think she’s real pretty.” Janice says dreamily.

“Well why don’t you date her then and then I can have Bones to myself.” Jim conspires.

“Leo doesn’t like boys Jim. He’s not like us. He and Sam only crush on girls.” Janice says. “Would you let me date Sam if he asked?”

“You wanna date  _Sam_?” Jim pouts. “What about me?”

“You’re in love with Leo.” She reminds.

“Oh yeah.” Jim sighs, looking into the next door garden where Leo and Jocelyn are kissing on the porch swing.

“Leo!” Sam shouts from his bedroom window. “You comin’ over?”

“Yeah.” Leo calls back, although his voice is a little breathy. “Let me just walk Joce home.”

Even when Leo leaves for college Jim still nurses his crush. Leo and Jocelyn aren’t dating anymore though, because she’s going to Atlanta for college and he’ll be in Mississippi. Apparently she’s dating some guy called Clay Treadway. Or so Sam has told him.

Leo doesn’t come home for thanksgiving but he does make it home for two days a Christmas. The Kirk’s and McCoy’s spend it together so that the boys get a chance to spend some time catching-up. Mostly Sam and Leo swap stories and Leo tries to assure his mother that he’s coping just fine. Jim’s been dreaming about Leo lately, and it makes him blush now that he has to face him, so he acts like the awkward adolescent he is and spends the majority of Christmas in his room.

Leo doesn’t make it home for another eighteen months. Sam’s been heading up to Mississippi all the time but he won’t let Jim go with him. They want to have fun not babysit a kid. So Jim concentrates on trying to navigate through puberty, hoping to get to fourteen with as little drama as possible.

And then Leo does come home, after his second year has finished. It’s May and the perfect time for Bones to perfect his tan. Jim’s heart races at the thought. And when Leo hops out of the pickup, muscles like he’s never had them and broad in a way Jim doesn’t remember Jim falls in love. But then Leo is walking round to the other side of the truck and a petite little blonde steps out.

“Hey, Jim.” Leo says. “Shit, kid, you’ve grown.”

“Fourteen now.” Jim says like it’s a victory. “Who’re you?” He asks the girl.

“I’m Christine Chapel.” She says.

“We’ve been datin’ for a while now.” Leo says. “Didn’t Sam say anythin’?”

“He’s too caught up with Aurelan.” Jim huffs. “You wanna come in?”

“Na, better head in and see mama first.” Leo shakes his head, taking Christine’s hand and crossing his yard into the McCoy house.

Jim makes an executive decision to get out of Iowa as soon as he can. He leaves school at sixteen and heads for the open road. Survives on the innate instinct for bullshitting people and it seems to mean he’s always able to keep himself afloat. Sometimes he heads home for the holidays, but mostly he doesn’t. He calls Sam on the Christmas before his twenty-first birthday.

“You need to come home, Jimmy.” Sam says with a horrible sorrow warping his voice. “It’s David. He’s real sick.”

“I’ll be there as soon as I can.” Jim assures his brother, cutting the connection.

When Leo is twenty-seven, Sam twenty-five and Jim freshly turned twenty-one David McCoy asks the nurses to turn off the life-support. They refuse of course. But they let him go home from the hospital, set him up in the guest bedroom and Leo takes over the palliative care treatment. Leo spends most of his time sitting in the chair by the bed alternating between begging David not to die and refusing his pleas for Bones to put those doctoring skills to use.

“I just can’t.” Leo says. It’s just he and Jim in the kitchen and so Jim surmises Bones must be talking to him.

“No one expects you to.” Jim says gently.

“He does.” Leo sighs. “How can I ask him to hang on? To try and wait a little longer. There ain’t gonna be a cure and he knows it. He’s in agony and we’re all just sitting round… What am I s’posed to do, Jim?”

“I don’t know, Bones.” Jim says, laying his hand over Leo’s. “You gotta do what you think is right.”

“Will you think bad of me?” He asks.

“By this point…” Jim starts with a self-deprecating smile. “I think I’m way beyond ever thinkin’ bad of you.”

“It was just a crush, Jim.” Leo smiles, trying to assuage the embarrassment he thinks Jim feels. “You were young and stupid.”

“I’m neither of those things anymore, Bones.” Jim says. And it’s more loaded than any gun could be.

David McCoy dies before Bones has worked up the courage to euthanize him. And only two months before a cure has been developed in Milan. Leo slips into this haze. Jim’s not sure if he should try and make a break for the boarder. He doesn’t think he can. He’s certainly outgrown his crush but he’s never quite outgrown Bones.

Sam moves to Deneva with his wife and kids for a research project when Jim turns twenty two and Leo is twenty eight. Their dynamics have changed a lot since Jim’s been back. Sam and Leo will always be Sam and Leo – best friends, joint-at-the-hip rouges.

But it’s Jim and Bones now too. When they curl up together on the couch of their apartment, when Leo kisses along Jim’s skin, when they whisper their promises into each dip and nook of each other’s bodies.

It had been strange for Jim, to finally get what he’d wanted for nearly-forever, and for Leo too, to have his view of kid Jim changed into that of a rugged, charming man who smiles freely but has these sharp edges. Sharp edges that Leo’s seem to match. 

It’s Jim and Bones, now, and the whole world knows it. 


End file.
